My Autumn Story: Remembering the Historic Flood of 1993 in Como

Exactly 20 years ago, in early autumn, the Lake Como overflowed due to continuous heavy rains, causing a giant flood to occupy part of the main squares in the old town. I recovered these photos that I am happy to share with you in this article!

Como is a tourist town located in Northern Italy just near the border to Switzerland, and is famous for its lake. Surrounded by beautiful mountains and is also known by the name Lario, it is characterized by the dark color of its waters due to its depth (it is the deepest lake of Italy). Twenty years ago, in the last week of September, the lake of Como burst its banks, causing its waters to occupy part of the main squares in the historic center of the city.

In these photos, you can see the historic flooding of 20 years ago that began on Saturday, September 25 and ended after 33 days, on October 28, 1993. The maximum level of the flood was reached on October 15 at 265 cm above the hydrometric zero level.

In recent years, due to better control of the water through an optimal managing of dams and locks, the flooding of the lake has been reduced to a few centimeters with marginal inconvenience. This was the last great flooding of my lake!

These photos were taken with a Nikon F301, a camera with which I’ve never been too comfortable and I’ve replaced a few months later with a Praktica, which I still use today. It is my ideal SLR camera, especially because it is completely mechanical so it never exhausts my batteries!

Here you can see water under the Broletto (which was the city hall in the Middle Ages) in Piazza Duomo (Cathedral Square), a few hundred meters away from the waterfront! The water even reached this place!

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